posted on August 9, 2023
I am sure most of you have heard the news that I took a hard tumble on my mountain bike about a week and a half ago. Now I am unfortunately dealing with a concussion, cervical sprain, and a TBD shoulder injury. It was only my second time riding on the trails at Frick Park with Hamer, Brad, and Brian from Faros Properties. Here’s a quick synopsis of what happened in case you’re curious:
Picture this: you’re riding along and getting into the groove of the trail, and you notice a large fallen tree with a ramp crossing up ahead. You approach the ramp with only a little bit of confidence, and you aren’t going quite fast enough to be able to get up and over it without a struggle. You lose control of your front wheel at the top and start to fall off to the right side. The fall is broken by your right arm, but you bounce up and hit your head hard enough to black out briefly on the way back down. Then you wake up out of breath since you just got the wind knocked out of you and send a quick text to the others that were with you (way up ahead) to let them know you’re still alive and are trying to survive the walk back to your car. (Shoutout to Hamer, Brian, and Brad for going back onto the trail to check on me and help me out.)
As you can probably imagine, this all has taken a huge toll on both my mental and physical health. Mentally, I am starting to struggle with focusing on some of the things that I used to enjoy. It almost feels like I’m dealing with one long terrible hangover. One of the biggest things I am finding difficult to get back into is lifting. I was finishing up my third week of training with coach Curt and looking forward to starting to officially train for a powerlifting meet this winter before this all happened.
I know that it’s not all completely down the drain yet as I do not know what exactly the extent of my shoulder injury is. They told me that it could either be a nondisplaced fracture, or a torn rotator cuff. Both injuries have very different recovery routes and timelines. Regardless I am dealing with some sort of a setback. I’m not sure if or when I will hop on a mountain bike trail again, or when I will start to seriously lift again.
One thing that I have learned so far in the short time I’ve been injured is that things like this are all a part of the learning process in the sport of life. I plan to use this experience as a huge steppingstone to improvement in the future. For now, I need to focus on getting back to my routine and building more confidence before I decide to go back out on a trail or into the weight room. The long-term goal is to come back and become stronger and better than I was before.
There is just as big of a mental component as there is physical to these types of injuries. I plan to update you all every few weeks so we can do a check in and see what progress I make! If any of you have any injury recovery stories, I’d love to hear them. Sometimes it’s helpful to just have someone listen to what you’re going through.
Toria
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